Tun M tried it once, and now in his second lease of life, he is at it again - wanting to change our mindset to be tuned to the frequency of the Japanese. Their zest for improvement and perfection cannonballed them up from a nation devastated by the pulverising effects of a mushroom cloud to morph into the second biggest economy in thirty short years. Somehow, we are deeply immersed and soaked in our mediocrity and lulled with self-glorification that even if we look at the Land of Rising Sun with awe, we remain faithfully as the Land of Twilight. For it is at the twilight of times, do we all become lethargic.
Gandhi, among the many things that he admired about the Europeans, includes cleanliness and punctuality. He went as far as to say that stickling to time made them able to rules countries timezones away (paraphrasing).
One of the virtues that skyrocketed the Japanese to great heights in discipline and keeping time. Go to any railway station and one can understand. A minute in the arrival of their train is a national crisis. Trains come on time at the dot of a second.
We, Malaysians, shamefully prescribe to the dictum, 'better late than sorry' but with a twist. We are late, we say sorry profusely but mean not a single word of it, and we would do it again without an iota of guilt. We do not bat an eyelid when we are stood up because we do the same. We apologise and a new slate. Queserasera.
Should it also be happening at a public domain level? Go to any bus or even no-frill airport terminal? One should think that, at least in the aviation industry, with their association with multinational concerns, some of the traits of timeliness would have trickled down. But hell no. I guess the lackadaisical Asiatic outlook and the humid tropical lethargy overpowers the desire to be prompt.
Try flying Firefly or Malindo from Subang (SZB) like I sometimes have to do for short trips. I think I may have some authority of sorts to vouch for their laggard performance on the punctuality department. Passengers would soon realise that the joke in on them after weaving and needling through the streets of KL to reach the airport just to be informed that their flight has been delayed. (Reasons: Pick your choice, as if anybody can fact-check; non-arrival of the shuttling planes from the other side, technical problems, inclement weather and the latest I heard is: a traffic jam in the KL skies!) You will end up arriving too early after all, for the umpteenth time.
More flights tend not to fly on time. No amount of profuse regrets is going to improve the hospitality. Both sides know it just lip service, mere little pacifiers. The apologies do not reflect the service providers' genuine inadvertent lapse in exemplar spotless work record but their inefficiencies. We all well versed with the Malay 'bangsawan' movie dialogue that goes, "beribu-ribu ampun, sembah patik harap diampun..." And we know they say it as a matter of figure of speech to think of an excuse to their undoing.
Have pride in your work. If you find it too complicated, perhaps you could leave it to others to manage. At this juncture, Peter's Principle comes to mind. In a hierarchy, people tend to rise to "their level of incompetence." Thus, as people are promoted, they become progressively less-effective because good performance in one job does not guarantee similar performance in another. In Malaysia, we also have a term. It is called 'jagoh kampong'.
Try flying Firefly or Malindo from Subang (SZB) like I sometimes have to do for short trips. I think I may have some authority of sorts to vouch for their laggard performance on the punctuality department. Passengers would soon realise that the joke in on them after weaving and needling through the streets of KL to reach the airport just to be informed that their flight has been delayed. (Reasons: Pick your choice, as if anybody can fact-check; non-arrival of the shuttling planes from the other side, technical problems, inclement weather and the latest I heard is: a traffic jam in the KL skies!) You will end up arriving too early after all, for the umpteenth time.
More flights tend not to fly on time. No amount of profuse regrets is going to improve the hospitality. Both sides know it just lip service, mere little pacifiers. The apologies do not reflect the service providers' genuine inadvertent lapse in exemplar spotless work record but their inefficiencies. We all well versed with the Malay 'bangsawan' movie dialogue that goes, "beribu-ribu ampun, sembah patik harap diampun..." And we know they say it as a matter of figure of speech to think of an excuse to their undoing.
Have pride in your work. If you find it too complicated, perhaps you could leave it to others to manage. At this juncture, Peter's Principle comes to mind. In a hierarchy, people tend to rise to "their level of incompetence." Thus, as people are promoted, they become progressively less-effective because good performance in one job does not guarantee similar performance in another. In Malaysia, we also have a term. It is called 'jagoh kampong'.
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| Post #2000 |
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